Tax office regis­tra­tion — tax regis­tra­tion

Intro­duc­tion

When you set up a busi­ness, you must sub­mit a “tax regis­tra­tion ques­tion­naire” to the rel­ev­ant tax office if you are start­ing a com­mer­cial, self-employed (freel­ance) or agri­cul­tural and forestry activ­ity. In this ques­tion­naire, you state your expec­ted turnover and profit expect­a­tions.

Once you have registered with the tax office, you will receive a tax num­ber for com­pan­ies, which you will need for your invoices and tax returns. At the same time, your advance pay­ments will be determ­ined. The tax office will check your details and may request addi­tional inform­a­tion if neces­sary.

Since you are usu­ally not yet registered with the trade office as a busi­ness founder, you must register dir­ectly within 4 weeks report to the tax office after the start of your busi­ness activ­ity.

Since the 1 Janu­ary 2021 apply for your tax num­ber for com­pan­ies elec­tron­ic­ally using this ques­tion­naire. The tax office will send you the tax num­ber after pro­cessing.

Ques­tion­naire for tax record­ing for sole pro­pri­et­or­ships

Ques­tion­naire for tax regis­tra­tion: Form­a­tion of a cor­por­a­tion or co-oper­at­ive

Ques­tion­naire for tax regis­tra­tion

In order to provide the neces­sary inform­a­tion for the tax office cor­rectly, you should make a real­istic estim­ate of your future sales and profits. It is help­ful to cre­ate a detailed fin­an­cial plan that you can keep in Excel, for example, or that is part of your busi­ness plan.

The fol­low­ing applies to small com­pan­ies and freel­an­cers: Your Oper­at­ing income less the oper­at­ing expenses res­ult in the Profit or loss. It is import­ant that these cal­cu­la­tions are as real­istic as pos­sible in order to avoid large addi­tional tax pay­ments.

What you should bear in mind:

1. Real­istic cal­cu­la­tions: Your estim­ates should be as accur­ate as pos­sible. Care­ful plan­ning and reg­u­lar reviews of your income and expendit­ure will help you to avoid large tax arrears.
2. cre­ate a fin­an­cial plan: Use tools such as Excel or spe­cial fin­an­cial plan­ning soft­ware to cre­ate a solid fin­an­cial plan. This will help you to real­ist­ic­ally estim­ate your expec­ted income and expendit­ure.
3. make adjust­ments: If your busi­ness situ­ation changes sig­ni­fic­antly over the course of the year and your ori­ginal planned val­ues no longer apply, inform the tax office. This will allow you to avoid pos­sible back pay­ments or adjust your advance pay­ments.
4. act early: If you real­ise that your income or expenses devi­ate sig­ni­fic­antly from the ori­ginal estim­ates, con­tact the tax office in good time. This way you can avoid unpleas­ant sur­prises and high addi­tional pay­ments.

When the applic­a­tion should be made:

You should register with the tax office as soon as pos­sible after set­ting up your com­pany, ideally before you start your first busi­ness activ­it­ies. As a rule, you must register within four weeks of start­ing your busi­ness activ­it­ies.

What you need to spe­cify:

• Com­pany name, legal form, address
• Name and con­tact details of the man­aging dir­ector or owner
• Type of busi­ness activ­ity
• Inform­a­tion on expec­ted income and expenses
• Inform­a­tion on employee num­bers, if applic­able

Import­ant doc­u­ments:

• Busi­ness regis­tra­tion or art­icles of asso­ci­ation
• Iden­tity card or pass­port of the entre­pren­eur
• Tax regis­tra­tion form that you receive from the tax office or can sub­mit online

Assign­ment of tax num­ber and VAT iden­ti­fic­a­tion num­ber (VAT ID no.)

1. Tax num­ber:
   • Alloc­a­tion: The tax num­ber for com­pan­ies is issued by the rel­ev­ant tax office as soon as you register with the tax office. This is usu­ally done after sub­mit­ting the “Ques­tion­naire for tax regis­tra­tion”.
   • Util­isa­tion: The tax num­ber is used to uniquely identify your com­pany for tax pur­poses and must be stated on all invoices. It is also used for com­mu­nic­a­tion with the tax office.
     
     
2. Value added tax iden­ti­fic­a­tion num­ber (VAT ID num­ber):
   • Applic­a­tion: You can apply for your VAT ID num­ber at the Fed­eral Cent­ral Tax Office, either in writ­ing or online.
   • Util­isa­tion: The VAT ID num­ber is required for cross-bor­der trade within the EU and must also be stated on invoices if you par­ti­cip­ate in intra-Com­munity trade. It will be assigned to you if you are registered for VAT with a Ger­man tax office. It must also be included in the Imprint of your web­site.

What are tax pre­pay­ments and what should you bear in mind?

Your advance tax pay­ments are determ­ined when you register with the tax office. These pay­ments are based on the inform­a­tion you provided in the “Ques­tion­naire for tax regis­tra­tion”, includ­ing your anti­cip­ated turnover and profit expect­a­tions.

What you should know:

• Cus­tom­isa­tion: If your turnover or profits change sig­ni­fic­antly, you can apply to the tax office for an adjust­ment of the advance pay­ments.
• Advance pay­ments: These are cal­cu­lated on the basis of your expec­ted tax bur­den and are due at reg­u­lar inter­vals. The amount can vary depend­ing on how much turnover and profit you expect.
• Pay­ment terms: Make sure you adhere to the dead­lines for advance pay­ments to avoid late pay­ment sur­charges or pen­al­ties.

Tax entry form — step by step

1. register with ELSTER:

• Since 2021, founders can find the ques­tion­naire for tax regis­tra­tion in digital form at ELSTER. 

2. choose an authen­tic­a­tion method:

• Cer­ti­fic­ate file: Cre­ate a cer­ti­fic­ate file on your com­puter. Please note that this can take up to 2 weeks until you receive the file.
• iden­tity card: Use your ID card together with a suit­able reader and the ID card app.
• Secur­ity stick: Get a secur­ity stick that is used with spe­cial soft­ware. Pay atten­tion to addi­tional acquis­i­tion costs.
• Sig­na­ture card: This option is par­tic­u­larly suit­able for tax con­sult­ants. The card is used together with a card reader.

3. choose the right ques­tion­naire for you:

There are sig­ni­fic­ant dif­fer­ences between the vari­ous ver­sions of the tax entry form, which vary depend­ing on the legal form of your com­pany:

• Sole pro­pri­et­or­shipThis ques­tion­naire applies to small busi­nesses (solo entre­pren­eurs), sole traders, freel­an­cers and agri­cul­tural and forestry busi­nesses.
• Cor­por­a­tionsFor legal forms such as UG, GmbH, AG, KGaA, European Com­pany and co-oper­at­ives.
• Part­ner­shipsApplies to GbR, OHG and KG.
• Com­pan­ies from abroadFor for­eign legal forms such as Ltd., BV, Inc. or Part­ner­ship.
• Invest­ments in part­ner­ships: There is a spe­cial ver­sion for this form of par­ti­cip­a­tion.

As soon as you have selec­ted the right ver­sion, you can start filling out the ques­tion­naire.

4. enter your tax num­ber or apply for a new tax num­ber for com­pan­ies

You must also select the tax office respons­ible for your company’s registered office. The ques­tion­naire provides a drop-down list for easy selec­tion of the cor­rect tax office.

If you already have a tax num­ber, enter this together with the rel­ev­ant com­pany tax office when start­ing the tax regis­tra­tion ques­tion­naire. How­ever, most founders choose the option “Apply for a new tax num­ber”.

Once you have selec­ted the cor­rect form from the menu, you can start filling out the ques­tion­naire. After each sec­tion, you will either see a green tick con­firm­ing that the sec­tion has been com­pleted and can be closed, or an orange sym­bol indic­at­ing that some­thing is still miss­ing.

To sim­plify the explan­a­tion, we have added a few sec­tions:

Sec­tion #1 to #4 Inform­a­tion on the com­pany, per­man­ent estab­lish­ments, rep­res­ent­a­tion

This sec­tion of the tax regis­tra­tion form deals with the essen­tial inform­a­tion about the com­pany. This includes

1. Type of activity(ies) car­ried out: This is a brief but pre­cise descrip­tion of what the com­mer­cial or freel­ance activ­ity con­sists of, e.g. Ser­viceEvent man­age­ment and organ­isa­tion of cor­por­ate events, E‑Commerce: Online sale of sus­tain­able house­hold goods and accessor­ies.
2. Name of the com­pany: Enter the com­pany name here if a com­pany name is per­mit­ted. Please note the nam­ing rules for com­pan­ies.
3. Address, con­tact details and web­site: This basic inform­a­tion about the com­pany should not be miss­ing. We recom­mend using an address that is not private, such as: buchhaltung@musterfirma.com.
4. Start of the activ­ityThe date marks the start of the busi­ness activ­ity, such as the pur­chase of goods or the rental of premises, and can be before the actual busi­ness regis­tra­tion.
5. Oper­at­ing sitesIn this sec­tion of the tax regis­tra­tion form, all of the company’s per­man­ent estab­lish­ments are indic­ated. This includes the addresses and tele­phone num­bers of all fixed busi­ness facil­it­ies or install­a­tions used for the company’s activ­it­ies.
   • Examples of busi­ness premises are
   • Place of man­age­ment
   • Branches
   • Fab­ric­a­tion and work­shops
   • Ware­house
   • Shop­ping and sales out­let
6. Legal rep­res­ent­at­ive (man­aging dir­ector, board of dir­ect­ors): In the “Legal rep­res­ent­at­ive (man­aging dir­ector, board mem­ber)” sec­tion of the tax regis­tra­tion form, you enter the rel­ev­ant inform­a­tion on the per­sons who are leg­ally respons­ible for the com­pany. Here are the details that need to be provided:

• NameFull name of the legal rep­res­ent­at­ive
• Address in Switzerland/abroad, P.O. Box, e‑mail
• Iden­ti­fic­a­tion num­berIf avail­able, the iden­tity card or iden­ti­fic­a­tion num­ber of the legal rep­res­ent­at­ive

Sev­eral legal rep­res­ent­at­ives can be entered if this applies to your com­pany. Make sure you enter all the required data cor­rectly and com­pletely.

Sec­tion #5 to #6 Power of rep­res­ent­a­tion and author­ised recipient(s) for all tax types

1. power of rep­res­ent­a­tion

• Defin­i­tion ofA power of attor­ney allows an author­ised rep­res­ent­at­ive to man­age all or part of your tax affairs on your behalf. This can be your tax advisor, for example.

• Tasks of the author­ised rep­res­ent­at­ive:
  • Sub­mis­sion of tax returns
  • Com­mu­nic­a­tion with the tax office
  • Hand­ling of all tax mat­ters
• DetailsEnter the con­tact details of the author­ised rep­res­ent­at­ive to grant this power of attor­ney.

2. receiv­ing author­isa­tion

• DetailsPlease state the con­tact details of the per­son who is to receive the power of attor­ney.
• Defin­i­tion ofA power of attor­ney allows a nom­in­ated per­son to receive import­ant tax doc­u­ments and noti­fic­a­tions on behalf of the com­pany.
• ExampleYour tax advisor can also act as an author­ised recip­i­ent in this case.

Sec­tion #7 Account data and SEPA dir­ect debit

You must enter the IBAN and the account holder here. If tax refunds are to be made to coun­tries out­side the SEPA pay­ment area (i.e. out­side the EU/EEA), please also enter the BIC.

You must provide the tax office with sep­ar­ate inform­a­tion for bank details out­side the SEPA pay­ment sys­tem, i.e. in par­tic­u­lar for non-European coun­tries.

Sec­tion #8 to #14: Inform­a­tion on form­a­tion, not­ary, share cap­ital and other com­pany form­a­tion issues

The fol­low­ing points must be observed here:

Start of the activ­ity: This is not the date of the offi­cial open­ing. The pur­chase of goods or the rent­ing of busi­ness premises already marks the start of entre­pren­eur­ial activ­ity. The date can also be before the busi­ness regis­tra­tion.

Com­mer­cial register entry: For entry in the com­mer­cial register, the art­icles of asso­ci­ation or art­icles of incor­por­a­tion must be sub­mit­ted for tax regis­tra­tion.

Open­ing bal­ance sheet — date and dif­fer­ent fin­an­cial year: When pre­par­ing the open­ing bal­ance sheet, you must indic­ate whether a dif­fer­ent fin­an­cial year exists and spe­cify the cor­res­pond­ing date. The open­ing bal­ance sheet is an import­ant fin­an­cial report that reflects the company’s assets and fin­an­cial pos­i­tion at the time of found­a­tion. It serves as the basis for the company’s future book­keep­ing and tax returns.

Sec­tion #15 Tax pre­pay­ments

As the man­aging dir­ector of a GmbH, you must real­ist­ic­ally estim­ate the company’s expec­ted income for the year of form­a­tion and the fol­low­ing year. The fol­low­ing points should be taken into account:

Sum­mary

• Net income for the year: Profit in accord­ance with com­mer­cial law; shows prof­it­ab­il­ity.
• Tax bal­ance sheet profit: Profit accord­ing to tax reg­u­la­tions; basis for tax cal­cu­la­tion.
• Tax­able income: Income after deduc­tion of costs; basis for income tax.
• Tax credit amounts: Amounts to reduce the tax bur­den; e.g. input tax or for­eign taxes.
• Trade income: Profit for the cal­cu­la­tion of trade tax; adjus­ted for tax reg­u­la­tions.

• One Estim­ate too high can lead to a strain on liquid­ity if the busi­ness does not per­form as expec­ted.
• One Estim­ate too low can lead to addi­tional pay­ments that are due together with the reg­u­lar advance pay­ments.

Think care­fully about the estim­ates and choose a Middle way. A real­istic approach min­im­ises the risk of fin­an­cial bot­tle­necks or unex­pec­ted addi­tional pay­ments.

Sec­tion #16 Income tax pay­ments

The due date for income tax regis­tra­tion with the tax office depends on the amount of income tax:

• Annu­ally: With a wage tax of up to 1,080 euros.
• Quarterly: If the wage tax between 1,080 Euro and 5,000 euros lies.
• Monthly: If the wage tax in the year 5,000 euros exceeds.

Sec­tion #17 Regis­tra­tion and pay­ment of VAT
Here you should estim­ate the expec­ted turnover for the year the com­pany is foun­ded and the fol­low­ing year.

If you opt for the small busi­ness reg­u­la­tion, you do not have to charge VAT and there­fore do not have to sub­mit advance VAT returns. How­ever, you may not gen­er­ate more than €22,000 in turnover per year (as of 2024). If you decide against the small busi­ness reg­u­la­tion, you can sub­mit another applic­a­tion after five years at the earli­est.

Whether you are eli­gible for tax exemp­tions, reduced tax rates or aver­age rate tax­a­tion depends on your activ­ity. Aver­age rate tax­a­tion, for example, is only rel­ev­ant for agri­cul­ture and forestry.

The choice between debit and actual VAT tax­a­tion is also import­ant. With actual tax­a­tion, you only pay the VAT once your cus­tom­ers have paid the invoice. With debit tax­a­tion, you may have to pay the VAT to the tax office before pay­ment is received.

Sec­tion #18 Regis­tra­tion VAT ID
If you already have a VAT iden­ti­fic­a­tion num­ber, please enter it in the form. If not, you can apply for it dir­ectly by tick­ing the rel­ev­ant box in the form.

Sec­tion #19 “One-stop-shop” pro­ced­ure
The One-Stop-Shop (OSS)-This pro­ced­ure sim­pli­fies the admin­is­tra­tion of VAT for com­pan­ies that sell goods or ser­vices to other EU coun­tries. With this pro­ced­ure, com­pan­ies can sub­mit their VAT returns cent­rally via a single point of con­tact in an EU mem­ber state.

Com­pan­ies only have to sub­mit their VAT returns once a quarter. The tax is paid to the tax author­ity of the mem­ber state, which then dis­trib­utes the VAT to the respect­ive coun­tries in which the sales were made.

This pro­ced­ure is par­tic­u­larly use­ful for e‑commerce com­pan­ies and online retail­ers, as it sig­ni­fic­antly reduces the admin­is­trat­ive bur­den. To be able to use the OSS pro­ced­ure, com­pan­ies must register in advance and provide the rel­ev­ant inform­a­tion in the tax regis­tra­tion form. If the OSS pro­ced­ure is not to be used, a reason must be given in the tax regis­tra­tion form, such as low turnover or tax­a­tion dir­ectly in the des­tin­a­tion coun­try.

Sec­tion #20 Online trad­ing Turnover
In this sec­tion, the tax office spe­cifies whether you oper­ate your own online shop and whether you also or altern­at­ively use other online mar­ket­places such as Amazon or Etsy.

It is import­ant to state the mar­ket­places used in the tax regis­tra­tion ques­tion­naire and the account name for iden­ti­fic­a­tion pur­poses.

Sec­tion #21 Con­struc­tion with­hold­ing tax
Sec­tion 21 will prob­ably not be rel­ev­ant for most founders. This sec­tion is par­tic­u­larly rel­ev­ant for com­pan­ies in the con­struc­tion industry. Here it is pos­sible to apply for a cer­ti­fic­ate of exemp­tion from tax deduc­tion for con­struc­tion ser­vices.

Sec­tion #22 and #23 Sep­ar­ately sub­mit­ted doc­u­ments and annexes
In this sec­tion, you can simply note which doc­u­ments you would like to sub­mit sep­ar­ately to the tax office and which doc­u­ments you should provide accord­ing to the inform­a­tion in the ques­tion­naire, e.g. open­ing bal­ance sheet

After you have com­pleted everything and provided the doc­u­ments for sub­mis­sion, a check is offered. Any errors will be iden­ti­fied and dis­played to you.

Ber­lin office
Bleib­treustrasse 38/39
10623 Ber­lin

info@start-bereit.com
+49 30 41734256